Bald Heads, Big Questions: Baptism, the Canon, and Sola Scriptura

There we are and we are live. Everybody, good afternoon, good evening, good morning. Depending on where you all are tuning in the world, we are very happy to be with you all. I’m joined by my near and dear brother, Dr. Carlo Persard, my friend Carlo. How have you been, brother? How’s it been going for you?

William:

We got the two baldising goatees going on tonight, bro. We do. I’m just missing the black shirt, man. I’m missing the black shirt to match you. We’re like black and white, ying and yang kind of thing tonight.

Karlo:

Oh yeah, man. We’re rocking it, man. And I got the glasses on tonight because I’m resting my eyes from the contents, but people are not used to seeing me with the glasses on.

William:

I almost asked you about that when we first got on. I noticed it was different. Yeah.

Karlo:

Right, right. Yeah.

William:

But I’ve been well, William. Great. I’ve been doing great, working hard, trying to keep my head afloat, right? Keep the head above water. And just rocking it, man. Especially with my new Dr. Karlo YouTube channel, been focused on that. We’ve about three weeks in now. We got episode five coming out this upcoming Monday, episode four drop this past Wednesday, which would have been a couple of days ago on what John really taught about the assurance of heaven in one John 5:13. Wow. We’ve been getting a … They tell me it’s a good start with what we got in the three weeks where over a thousand subscribers, they tell me that’s good. That’s good. I have no idea what to compare that to. As far as the views goes on the episodes, they’re all right. They’re not quite as many of views as I think we would hope for, but we’re working on it.

We’re going to be consistent and constant in providing good, beautiful material for the Catholic faith in order to help people grow in their walk with the Lord and then in their knowledge of the faith. So anybody listening right now, be sure to head on over to my new YouTube channel, Dr. Karlo. Just type it in Dr. Karlo YouTube. It should pop up as the first link, but the handle is @dior-carlo. So @dr-carlo. And then just working with my Patreon page and my patrons, we got some patrons who are signing up as well, four different levels of membership. There you go. From $5 a month to $100 a month with all sorts of different perks, including access to some of my online short six hour courses. One on more relativism, another critiquing the Doctrine of Soul Scripturer that I host on my website. And with those courses, William, folks can get lecture notes each totaling to write over 20,000 words.

So it’s almost a booklet that goes with each of the courses. Folks can also get access to my Catholic answers courses through the Catholic Answers School of Apologetics. We’re going to be doing once a month online webinars, signal group chatting for level four membership, sharing research, geeking out, nerding out and apologetics and all that fun stuff. So yeah, man, just trying to create a good workflow with these two new projects of the YouTube channel and the Patreon page and communicating with folks, trying to stay engaged. And we’ll see what Providence holds.

Karlo:

Praise the Lord. It really does sound like you’re geeking out there in a good way. In a really good way. And I know we have some phenomenal moderators in the chat. You guys, thank you for sharing the link to the incredible channel of Dr. Carly. Appreciate that. Yeah, greatly appreciate it. You guys are great. And if you all have questions on your mind, remember, the link is posted. We’re going to be talking about baptism. You want to talk about infant baptism, baptism regeneration, solo scriptura. Carlo is your guy and we’re here for you all. Happy to be with you all, Jimmy. Jimmy, we’re humbled by your kind comments. It says, two studs, Jimmy. We love you, my friend. We love you, Jimmy. You’re great, my friend. And don’t forget, if you have not yet, head over to Dr. Carlos channel and subscribe. But don’t only do that.

Go over there, subscribe and put the notification bell on

William:

So you

Karlo:

Can get notifications every time there is new material. You said you’ve got a new video dropping on Monday, you said. Is that right?

William:

Yeah. So every Wednesday we’ll have our regular full produced episodes that will drop. However, every once in a while, I’ll have some bonus episodes that I’ll share with my audience interspersed between the weekly episodes that aren’t as fully produced as the weekly episodes, but nevertheless is good enough content to share. So this Monday, I’ll be dropping the interview I did with Adrian Lawson at Sips with Sarah. And we talked about where Catholics go wrong when debating solo scriptura. And it was a great conversation. Unfortunately, the video quality didn’t quite come out like I was hoping due to the wifi here at the Chancery and the studio at the Diocese, but it’s good enough to be able to put online and to share because the conversation was great, some great back and forth between Adrian and I. So I was pretty excited about it, looking forward to sharing that this Monday.

That’s when that episode will drop. And then of course, the weekly episode will drop on Wednesday of next week.

Karlo:

Very nice. Freddy de Jesus says that he watched that. He liked it. There you

William:

Go. Awesome.

Karlo:

Fantastic.

William:

Very, very cool. We love that. I appreciate those kind words. Yeah.

Karlo:

Yeah. We want to hear feedback, everybody. That is what we want here so we can know what do you all like? What do you all want? So we can know what to produce for you all. And we are here as you’re a humble servants in the Lord. We want to be able to provide material for you all. So we remind you all, we’ve pinned the link. If you have anything on your mind, you want to pick Dr. Carlos’ brain, pick my brain. You want to challenge us in a friendly manner? Yeah, we’d love to hear from you. We really, really want. Yes, do not forget to hit the like button. And Joanna says, God bless you, Joanna. Joanna Sandoval, God bless you. Don’t forget everyone to head over to … Oh, very cool. He says, “I took notes on your New Testament priesthood video.” There you go.

Very cool.

William:

And he- Yo did a priesthood, New Testament priesthood video?

Karlo:

He might be confusing me then. I thought he was telling you.

William:

Oh, he’s telling me. Okay, cool. Because I don’t know which one it was.

Karlo:

Yeah. I don’t have a New Testament priesthood video. It’s

William:

Got to be

Karlo:

You.

William:

You got one, right? Well, I’m trying to think of one that I’ve formally done. Maybe he could … Maybe it was a Catholic Cancers Live video. It could have been. I’m not sure exactly which one he’s talking about. Yeah,

Karlo:

He’s talking to you. He’s referring to you. Okay.

William:

It could

Karlo:

Have been Catholic answers

William:

Life. I have done some work on the New Testament ministerial priesthood. I have some articles at catholic.com and maybe I’ve done some radio shows on it as well. So that might be what he’s referring to. But I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

Karlo:

Awesome. Awesome. Very likely. I mean, audience, you have to remember we do so many shows and then sometimes Catholic answers, a bunch of calls come in. And at times we tend to forget. And Abe says he’s a big fan of your content. AB, we are very grateful for your support, guys. You guys

William:

Are

Karlo:

Reading. Abe does ask. Thank you for your support. You guys are incredible. AB is asking, how can Protestants claim the Mazoretic texts are more accurate canonically speaking? If they were not complete until the 10th century. What are your thoughts on that? Do you have any thoughts to that of you?

William:

Well, William, I’m going to appeal to you on that one since you’re the canon guy. I love that. Yep. Yeah. So you start us off and then I’ll chime in if I got any thoughts that pop.

Karlo:

Yeah. And I’ll tell you this, AB. Canonically speaking, it isn’t a good argument. It really isn’t good. You’re right. They weren’t complete until quite late in history. And we know merely by looking at the New Testament, the New Testament authors are heavily relying on the Greek subtuagent, but not only the New Testament, authors are relying heavily in the Greek Septuagint. You can look in the early church. The early church fathers are heavily relying on that as well. And then even before we get to the early fathers in the second century and beyond, early on, early Jewish scholar and historian Josephus is heavily relying upon the Greek Septuagint as well. In fact, he’s quoting from second Maccabees, excuse me, utilizing the longer version of Esther. So you’re going to hear Protestants hearkening to the Masoretic test, but yeah, canonically speaking, it isn’t a good argument. And I tend to think that … I’ll put it in the bin of arguments that well, they believe as well, they’ll also try to argue that the Jews are the ones who we need to look to for early evidence of the early Canon as well.

So they’ll combine both of those arguments. But as you know very well, as we’ve shown, and we’ve even had Carlo on this show over in the apocalyp apocalypse, we’ve shown very clearly the idea that early Jews would have held to a shorter canon that is exact to that in terms of the Old Testament of modern day Protestantism is fanciful. You don’t find

William:

Anywhere. And even among the Pharisees who had a canonical tradition that would have been somewhat similar to the 39 book canon of the Old Testament and the Protestant Bibles, even that canonical tradition wasn’t refined in a way such that it was identical to the Protestant cannon. So you know William and you’ve written on this and debated this concerning the late mid-second century rabbi.

Karlo:

Oh yeah.

William:

Help me out. Ben Akiva, was it?

Karlo:

Rabbi Akiba. Yep.

William:

Right. Yes. Where he settles, for the first time, sees that there’s a necessity to settle the issue on making judgments on the Jewish writings of Sirach, right? And then you have Song of Songs and Esther and Ecclesiastes. Even those Jewish writings were not settled on as being inspired scripture among the Phariseical school of the first century and was not settled on until later in the second century. So even if we just focus our minds on those three texts themselves, then our Protestant friends who have them within their 39 book cannon are ascenting to these books to be inspired by God, not on the account of legitimate authority, divine authority, but an account of Jewish testimony or the testimony of a rabbi who did not have divine authority at the time whenever he settled those issues.

Karlo:

And that is a great point that you bring up there, Carlo, because Rabbi Akiba, number one, you’re right, he has no authority at all. But in that condemnation, and we can find it in the work called 2:13, in that condemnation where he is attacking the gospels and he also attacks the Deuter Canonical books, what does it show you? It shows you very clearly that if right there in attacking the gospels and you’re also attacking the Deuter Canon, shows you that the early followers of the Christ were reading from the Deuterocanon as well.

William:

Absolutely. There would be no need for him to draw a distinction between his Jewish community and the Christians by rejecting the Deuter Canonical books if the Christians were not using the Deuterocanonical books, right? There you go. So the very act of making the distinction itself is a strong indication that the Deutero canonicals were being believed by Christians to be a part of the canon and a part of sacred scripture.

Karlo:

Yeah, no doubt. And that is a big issue for Protestants, an enormous issue because today the massive majority of Protestants reject the Deutero Canon, and they do so, of course, based upon a tradition that they’ve inherited. And even if they try to claim that they reject the Deuter Canon based on solo scriptura, well then how about we dive into the Bible alone? Let us see how you are able to determine your Canon and we can stick to the New Testament alone. How are you able to determine your canon from the Bible alone? I’d love to see that you’re unable to. And that is a big issue for the Protestant world and an issue that I call a massive dilemma for them over and over. I point out to my evangelical and Teolocators, to our evangelical friends, that we start with the 27 books in the New Testament alone without even dealing with the issue they’re in with the Deuterocanon lacking from their Bibles, how do you determine that those and those alone are the New Testament?

As you know very well, Carlo, because you’ve written on this, you’ve done great books on this topic and you’ve dealt with them, the topic that in the early church, there are all kinds of books that are floating around.

There are all kinds of them.

William:

Yeah, because if you follow the principle of solo scripture and assert that these apostolic writings are sole infallible testimony for knowing what is God’s revelation, well, then in order to know which Jewish and/or Christian writings are divinely inspired or God breathed, you’re going to have to rely on that infallible testimony. And so you raise a very good question, which Jewish and Christian writings can we ascent to be inspired based on the infallible testimony of Jesus and or the apostles? And to be fair to our Protestant friends, I’m sympathetic and willing to grant them to come to the conclusion that much of the New Testament, the New Testament documents are inspired based upon that infallible testimony. Now being very generous in some of them, like for example, when St. Peter tells us in two Peter 3:15 and calls Paul’s epistles to be scripture, now one could push back and say, “Well, which writings of Paul?

Which epistles are inspired by God?” And I think that’s a fair counter argument, but I’m willing to be sympathetic and grant our Protestant friends and say, “Okay, we can rest our knowledge that Paul’s writings are inspired by God based upon the infallible testimony of St. Peter.” And that’s fair. That seems logically coherent to me. And also too, that it is true, you do not have to be infallible to recognize an infallible testimony, right? You do have to be infallible to recognize what is inspired by God and is God breathed. But as fallible human beings, we can recognize through historical investigation and reasonable certainty that these preachers constituted and appointed by Jesus, namely the apostles, are an infallible testimony. They have Jesus’ authority behind them. Now, even with, for example, the gospel of Luke, when St. Paul, if my memory serves me correctly, is it one Timothy 5:18?

I believe

Karlo:

It is, yeah.

William:

Where he quotes a passage from Luke’s gospel calling it scripture.

Karlo:

Yeah.

William:

Now, one could push back and say, “Well, how do you know he believes all of Luke’s gospel in scripture rather than just that passage?” Now, I will say that to be fair to our Protestant, we appeal to New Testament authors who will appeal to a Deuterocanonical book, right? And even more than illusions, there are some instances, and you know this better than I do, where we can infer that they’re referring to it as scripture, even though they don’t use the language explicitly, but let’s just say the early church fathers. When an early church father refers to a Deuterocanonical book and quoting a particular passage and calling it scripture, we infer from that that he believed the whole book was inspired as well. So if we can do that, then I would grant our Protestant friend fair game to be able to conclude Luke’s gospel is inspired based upon the infallible testimony of Paul.

Now, that’s quite a bit of the New Testament when you look at it like that. And then assuming that we can establish a principle that whatever an apostle rights is inspired, and so there you have Matthew’s gospel to be inspired. I think even that principle is difficult to come by, but let’s grant that where our Protestant friends will have a problem in assessing or determining the inspiration of, say, Mark’s gospel, not in content. I do think that you can get the inspiration of the content of Mark’s gospel on account of the preaching of Peter, because we have historical testimony that Mark is recording what he remembered to be the preaching of Peter. Sure. And that means it’s inspired in content, but not inspiration in words or what we call verbal inspiration. That’s

Karlo:

A great point.

William:

Because Mark is only recording what he remembered Paul teaching. He’s not transcribing Peter’s … I said Paul. I meant Peter. He’s not transcribing Peter’s very words. So you cannot get verbal inspiration of Mark’s gospel on account of the infallible testimony of Peter. And then of course, the book of Hebrews, we don’t really know who authored it. So you can’t appeal to the principle that whatever an apostle writes or an apostolic man whom an apostle confirms to be inspired, we can’t appeal to those criteria in order to assess the inspiration of Hebrews. And then if you take the position that James is not one of the 12, James of Alphas, but James, the brother of the Lord, some other James, well, then how are you going to assess, how are you going to determine its inspiration based upon the infallible testimony of Jesus and or apostles because there’s no data that would allow for you to make that conclusion.

And then of course, you can throw in the mix two Peter, right? And some scholarship- Revelation. The book of Revelation is that John the Apostle. And so although I think our Protestant frands can get some of the New Testament, some scriptura based upon the infallible testimony of the apostles alone, and then even some O Testament books from the testimony of Jesus, but sticking to the New Testament, you’re not going to get the 27 books based upon the infallible testimony of the apostles alone. And then you have the problem of the belief that the dedicate is not inspired or Clement’s letter to the Corinthian church is not inspired. The majority of Protestants will profess that those make positive claims that those early documents do not have the objective quality of inspiration, but yet you cannot account for that belief based upon the infallible testimony of the apostles alone in the New Testament.

So yet you have further beliefs that are based upon something other than scripture and solo scritpura would block a Protestant from having infallible knowledge that those books do not possess the objective quality of inspiration. So again, I do think this is a problem for our Protestant friends being able to determine some books of the New Testament to be inspired based upon the infallible testimony of the apostles alone, but not all the 27 books of the New Testament based upon the infallible testimony of the apostles. And now a Protestant, I’ve talked to a church of Christ, evangelist who converted to Catholicism where he said, “I came to a point where I was just not sure, for the book of Hebrews.” He followed the logic and came to the conclusion like, “Well, I guess I just have to be agnostic with regard to the book of Hebrews as to whether it is inspired because he couldn’t account for it by a scripture alone, by the New

Karlo:

Testament.” Wow. And that really is the crux of the issue. You need a church to authoritatively decide these issues. A church, the church from the Bible under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that church is the Catholic church and that church is the church that discerned the canon. It isn’t as easy as well. Okay. The other day I was dialoguing by the way, Carlo with, by the way, for the audience may be wondering, we have pinned the link. If you want to come back and ask us something, the link is pinned, but you’ve got to let us know what is your faith, what is their question? I was talking with a Protestant and it was a Protestant pastor and he made a shocking statement. He made it on the air, one that I’d never heard before that, well, the canon that modern day Protestants that they have was discerned at the era of the Reformation and they discerned that and they determined that the Old Testament was the shorter one that modern day Protestants have.

And of course, the New Testament of those 27 books that they hold to today and ask them, give me one evidence that they did that. What he provided me was a Westminster confession, which of course there is no evidence that they discerned anything, that they did any research, and there is no evidence. What the fact of the matter is, is that modern day Protestants are relying upon a later tradition of the Old Testament that they hold to, not the tradition of the Apostolic Church and their New Testament, they inherit that number from the Catholic church and they accept it. But you run into a big issue, Carlo, as you pointed out there, many New Testament books, they were disputed for centuries. As you pointed out, Hebrews, James, two Peters, second and third John, Jude, Revelation. And today people shouldn’t merely take this for granted because today, Carlo,

If I point you to the other side and I say, “Well, let’s look at the canon in our Eastern Orthodox friends.” They have a different canon, many of them, but then it gets even dicier. If I point people to the Orient Orthodox, their canon or the Assyrians, they don’t have Hebrews. They don’t have two Peter, second, third John, they don’t have Jew, they don’t have revelation. So that really gets to the issue. Protestants without realizing it are accepting the 27 books the Catholic church has given them. They don’t realize it, but they are accepting it. And then you’re in a dilemma then, because if you then say, “Okay, well, the Catholic Church, I think they got it right there.” Well, all of those bishops that those councils that talked about the canon, if they got that right, well, why didn’t they get it right about the Eucharist

William:

Or

Karlo:

About baptism regeneration or infant baptism or on and on and on, you’re in a big bind there, aren’t you, Carlo?

William:

Yeah, because it’s a bit of a double standard. Like you look to the church in order, you look to the church as an authority, maybe not infallible authority, so a Protestant will argue, but an authority that they will argue is guided by the Holy Spirit how that is the case without it being infallible, that’s left up for discussion. But nevertheless, looking to the church when it comes to a belief that they already have prior that they’re looking for confirmation for, but then not looking to the standard or the judgment of the church when it comes to beliefs they already priorize reject. And so it’s a special pleading, right? It’s looking to the church as a standard of judgment for one doctrine that just so happens that matches what you already believe a priorize, but rejecting the standard of the church when it comes to a doctrine that you already a priori reject.

And so that’s a bit of a problem. There’s a lack of consistency there, but you can reverse that and state it differently if you’re going to look to the judgment of the church for this belief, the belief in these books to be inspired, but then why not look to the judgment of the church when it comes to these other beliefs? Yep. And so ultimately what happens there is it’s not the church that’s persuading the individual to ascent to one doctrine or another, but rather it’s the individual standing in judgment over and above the church itself throughout history and then determining the church is right here, but the church is not right there. So it’s not the people of God or the church that’s the measure, it’s the individual there that has to be the measure. Rather than the alternative view, which would be the Catholic view, having prior reasons to conclude that this church is established by Christ, thereby exercising a superior authority over my intellectual judgments, consequent to which I thereby submit to this judgment of the church out of obedience, recognizing that the church is able to lead me to the truth in a way that I can’t do on my own.

And so I do not, in that scenario, I am not assenting to the belief because I’ve judged the church to be right in that case. Rather, I have my prior reasons of the church exercising a superior authority over me consequent to which I submit to that judgment and assent to the belief or the proposition that these books are inspired by God.

Karlo:

It’s a phenomenal way you lay that out. And I feel that within the world of Protestantism, you run into an enormous problem. And I very often find the more and more I dialogue with evangelical leaders, evangelical individuals, I very often, and Carlo, reach a point where they will tell me or they’ll flat out say, “Okay, well, the Catholic church gave us the canon, New Testament.” A lot of them have conceded that point to me, but then they’ll then get … Well, when you then press them, you ask them, “Okay, is it infallible?” And then I’ve heard them flat out tell me, “On the air.” No.

William:

The judgment of the church is not infallible. Correct, correct.

Karlo:

So then I’ll press them and I’ll say, “Okay, so the judgment of the church isn’t infallible.” So then is it possible that maybe there’s a book or two missing? Or on the more destroyedly side for you all, is it possible that maybe there’s one or two that shouldn’t be there to begin with? And I’ve had some admit that for their case that that is a possibility. That’s shocking, Carlo, because we’re talking about the word of God. Isn’t that shocking?

William:

Absolutely. I agree 100% because at least kudos to them, they’re being consistent with the logic. They are.

Karlo:

Yes.

William:

And so we got to tip our hats to that rather than being inconsistent. But being consistent with that logic brings up a major problem because you could very well be looking to documents as the inspired word of God when they’re not and trying to derive divine revelation from it when it’s not a source of divine revelation. Now, here’s an interesting thought that just occurred to me. It might actually put the Protestant in a twofold dilemma. So number one, he’s looking to a document from which he can possibly extract divine revelation, but it’s not a source of divine revelation. So that’s one problem. But the other part of the dilemma perhaps is tacitly appealing to a sacred tradition, right? Because think about this, if a particular book is not scripture that is in their canon, it’s at least of apostolic origin.

Karlo:

Right, no doubt.

William:

And if it’s of apostolic origin containing some teachings and sayings of Jesus perhaps, or some teachings that are not found in the other inspired text within the canon, well, then you would have an apostolic, oral apostolic tradition beyond the boundaries of sacred scripture that is preserved in the historical record, i.e., Sacred tradition. So that would actually work against the solar scripture position and in favor of the Catholic Orthodox view of sacred tradition. So I actually had never thought of that before, but it seems to me, as I think about it right now, that that concession, that the judgment of the church with regard to the canon is not infallible, thereby implying the possibility that some book in the canon is not inspired by God, that would allow for the possibility of a sacred tradition or traditions, plural, being preserved in the historical record.

Karlo:

That’s a phenomenal point. A really, really good point. And either which way you look at it, Protestantism is in trouble. Protestantism is in trouble either which way. Our dear friend, Rosarium, thank you for the sport, is asking, if baptisms should preferably be done by priests, are baptisms done by sedevacantist priests equally valid or are they null and void or lacking in efficacy of non-ssedevacatist priests are accessible? So let me try and tackle this one first and then you can give your thoughts. Now, when you talk about sedevacantist priests, that’s a good question. Are you referring to a validly ordained priest? It’s because I know some that claim to be priests and they’re not. So I know some that aren’t. But when we talk about this particular thing, it can get kind of tricky. So according to Catholic teaching, now what makes the baptism valid?

Now, the church is always taught from the very beginning that baptism, the validity of baptism depends on a number of things. And these are what the churches always refer to as objective elements. Now Carlo is a brain, he’ll know where it is in the catechism. Off the top of my head, I don’t remember, but I could tell you that the essentials are clear. It’s proper matter. You got to have real water. You got to have proper form. Meaning you can’t just say, I’m baptizing the name of the father. There’s got to be, I baptizing the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. You got to have proper intention too. That is to do what the church does when she baptizes. And of course, you got to have somebody that hasn’t been baptized yet. Very clearly, if someone has been baptized yet, the one, of course, then it would be what we would call the person would be, what’s the term?

Would not be a baptizable subject. So if these are present in the baptism is valid. Now, here is the important point. This is true. Even a lay person under certain circumstances can validly baptize if they intend to do what the church does. And this would include a Catholic priest and even schismatics and even lay people in emergencies, even lay people in emergencies. So if you’re talking about, even though we don’t recommend it under normal circumstances, because the way it sounds like to me, Rizarium, you mean like an ordinary circumstance, not one in emergency, not one where someone’s life is at risk. And if that is the case, well, remember that state of econoism is a grave sin because you are in schism and you have rejected the Roman Pontiff and the rejection of the visible head of the church on earth is a big problem because that’s bad.

It’s very bad. Schism doesn’t invalidate baptism. We know that very clearly because the church recognizes baptisms from Orthodox and other groups. Now, would we call it Prudential? We wouldn’t call it Prudential. And it sounds like this, this doesn’t sound like an emergency scenario to me here, Carlo.

William:

Yeah. Yeah. So as you put it, William, within ordinary circumstances for a non-ordinary minister to baptize, which would be this case or me, if I go and try to baptize my child, that baptism would be contrary to what the church calls for and thereby objectively speaking immoral. It’s contrary to the precept of the church. So it would be classified as a sinful act. Whether I’m culpable for that or not is another question. That’s an essentially different question. But in ordinary circumstances, it would be an illicit is what we say in theology or canon law, an illicit action, but nevertheless, valid. So as you put it, schism would not invalidate a baptism, nor would a lack of lyciity or the act being illicit invalidate the baptism. This is actually a debate that is ancient, as you know very well, William, going back all the way to the 200s in the middle of the third century with St. Cyprian of Carthage saying that any baptism performed by a quote unquote heretic, not necessarily saying the city of Icantis is a quote heretic, because that’s a very technical term, but you can see the parallel here that when heretics were baptizing outside of the visible boundaries of the Catholic church, St. Cyprian concluded that’s invalid.

But then of course, Pope Steven, the first, counters that and says, no, it is valid. And that was the judgment of the church that took root and that we have still to this day. Getting to your point about who can baptize, the catechism of the Catholic church has a great point in there where it specifies that even a non-believer can validly baptize in extraordinary circumstances, assuming that, as you put it, proper form is used, water is used, and he’s at least intending to do whatever these Christian people do, right? So if you got two atheist dudes and all of a sudden they get in a bad car wreck and one atheist dude is about to die and he just converts on the spot and says, “Man, bro, I need you to baptize me. Baptize me, man.” And he says, “Well, what do I do? Just pour that water on me and name a Father Son and Holy Spirit and just intend to do what Christians do.

” And if he does it, that’s going to be a valid baptism. Why? Well, because as our Lord has revealed, you must be born again of water and spirit to enter the kingdom of heaven. This is the condition for entrance into the kingdom of heaven. So there’s a universality of it, right? There’s a mercy of our Lord of allowing that sacrament to be valid in such a universal general way because of the importance of the sacrament for entrance into the kingdom of heaven. And it’s the intention that intention simply to do what Christ commanded to do is sufficient. And this provides a rationale, William, for as to why the church would accept the baptisms as valid of say a Baptist community. So even though they believe their theology is off and they think and believe that the baptism is merely a symbol, but nevertheless, insofar as they intend to do what Christ commanded them to do out of obedience, with proper form and proper matter, the church recognizes that to be valid and receives even a baptist baptism as valid.

And that maps on with this other teaching about an unbeliever even being able to baptize validly in extraordinary circumstances. A circumstance where a baptism would be invalidated or invalid is if someone were to positively intend the baptism to be a mockery, right? Yep. That would be a scenario where even though proper form and matter is being used, the intention would not be in place and the intention would be directly and positively at odds with what Christ intends and what the church intends, thereby invalidating the baptism.

Karlo:

That is a great point. A phenomenal, phenomenal point. And I’m glad you laid it out like that because to be very clear for the audience, there is nuance

William:

There.

Karlo:

There is nuance there. By the way, for the audience tuning in, you guys are phenomenal. We have nearly 400 live. Guys, do us an enormous favor. With those nearly 400 lives … Actually, we have 401 now. With those 401 people live, please do us in enormous favor. Hit like,

Share this so people can check out the show. Dr. Carlo is phenomenal. And if you have not yet headed over to his channel to hit, you got to head over there, subscribe, check out everything he’s doing over there. And don’t forget to hit that notification bell, because you’re going to want to get it so that whenever you’re on your phone, you get the notification. Whenever he’s dropping new material, we really want you to check it out. He’s doing a lot of great work. And he’s also doing great work over there on patron.com. You got to check him out guys. He’s doing really good work there. And I’ll also say this, as we both know, if you are subscribed to Dr. Carlo on patreon.com, if you are, if you’re subscribed to either of us, we hope you are. And if you are, we thank you for your support.

Absolutely. And with that, get the app guys, get the app. I tell everyone this all the time, because with the app, anytime Dr. Carlo puts up new material, boom, it’s going to come out there on your phone, on your mobile device. If you’ve got the app, you got to get it. You got to get it. Yeah.

William:

And that’s important that you mentioned that, William, because I’m utilizing the Patreon page and the patron community to update folks whenever I’m on the radio for Catholic Cancers Live. And so I let people know that the podcast version is uploaded at catholic.com, staying in touch with the patrons. I let them know whenever I have a new article come out for Catholic Answers Magazine online. And then of course, I’m letting them know about any sort of new episodes. They can get early access to those episodes from level one all the way to level four. But even if they sign up for free just to kind of check it out and test the waters a little bit, it’s an opportunity for them to stay up to date with whatever work that is coming out with Catholic answers.

Karlo:

Phenomenal. And you are always very often doing … Man, you are incredibly active, always working on new materials. So people got to keep an eye out there and check it out. Check out everything, excuse me, that Dr. Carlo’s working on. Now, here’s one other thing that I want to do. I don’t want it to get lost in the shuffle. We’re having an incredible time. We’re getting a lot of great questions and great interaction. But don’t forget, Dr. Carlos put out some incredible books on topics that we’re talking about. It barely hit me right there. Maybe for a moment you can tell the audience, what books have you put out in regards to baptism and these particular topics? Where could people find them?

William:

Yeah. So with regard to baptism, that’s actually my latest book that was published by Catholic Answers Press. It’s entitled Baptism Now Saves You, which obviously is a quote from one Peter 3:21, How Water and Spirit Give Eternal Life. And they came out a few months back and folks can get that at shop.catholic.com. And I’m pretty happy with that book. I like the way it came out. I spent a whole chapter on The Born Again discourse in John three: three through five. I answered 10 Protestant counter arguments, alternative lines of exegesis for that text and show why those 10 counter arguments ultimately fail. I have a chapter looking at Paul’s theology on baptism from one Corinthians 12:13 to Romans six: three through four: seven and 17 through 18. And then I have a chapter on one Peter 3:21 itself, giving a Catholic exam, not just a Catholic, but anyone who believes in baptismal regeneration exegesis of that text, and then also responding to some counter arguments and alternative lines of exegesis of that text and why some Christians wouldn’t interpret that passage to be referring to sacramental baptism as we would.

I have a chapter on early Christian testimony, which is your jam of chatristics and early church fathers when it comes to baptismal regeneration. And then I have some chapters on the theology of baptism because whenever we talk about baptism and it’s quote unquote necessity for salvation, a variety of different questions arise concerning the relation between baptism and salvation. I deal with infant baptism within the book as well, both on the biblical side and the historical side, and then answering theological questions that arise concerning infants who die without baptism and all those sorts of issues, all present in that book, baptism now saves you.

And then of course, with regard to the Catholic Protestant dialogue, I have other books as well, a book on the Intercession of the Saints, a book on purgatory, two books that look at Protestant arguments and then our rebuttals of them. One called Meeting the Protestant Challenge: How to Answer 50 Biblical Objections to Catholic Beliefs, and then one entitled Meeting the Protestant Response: How to Answer Common Combats to Catholic Arguments. So those would be my books dealing with the Catholic Protestant dialogue. And then my other two that I have are more of the second one- By

Karlo:

The way, just really quickly, those two books are amazing.

William:

Thank you, man. I appreciate that. And then the other two books that I have deal with secular apologetics, one called Prepare: The Way: Overcoming Obstacles to God, the Gospel and the Church, and then the other one, The New Relativism Unmasking the Philosophy of Today’s Woke Moralless. So seven books and all, we’re working on it. I got to catch up with my boy, Trent, who has like 12 or 13 man. So I’m telling him, man, but eventually I’ll get there and I’ll hopefully catch him one day.

Karlo:

Yeah, you’ll definitely do that. But I’ll tell you one thing, even though you haven’t caught him yet, people, I agree with our incredible moderator here, Mick Vine. Francisco, thank you for the comments. He’s right. Carlos, no joke, guys. He’s one of the best. And yes, that’s why we got Carlo here, because I don’t shy away from saying that here in my channel, I like to bring the very best on. And Carlo, you do incredible work. I do want to commend to your work is tremendous. And we’ve got a wonderful brother, Abel. Abril is asking, and this is right up the alleyway of Carlo, and this is a great topic that came up the other day, so this is going to be great to be able to talk about it. He says, “Can you make a case for infant baptism for the Bible? Would it logically follow that since babies were circumcised in the Old Testament covenant, then should we baptize babies in the New Testament covenant?” So would that follow then?

As Abel is asking, excuse me, can you make that case that babies, they’re circumcised in the Old Testament, and so then we should baptize him in the New Testament. Is there any verse that may stick out to you? And let me toss another one there because Abel didn’t

Ask that, but I’ll toss it in there. And did the early church baptize babies? How would you answer that, Carlo?

William:

Yeah. So with regard to circumcision, the answer is yes. I make this argument in my book from Colossians chapter two, verses 11 through 12, where St. Paul teaches us that the circumcision of Christ is baptism. Basically, that’s the bottom line lesson that he’s communicating or message he’s communicating there in Colossians 2:11 through 12. So if you look at baptism as the new circumcision and you employ the interpretive principle of typology, reading the new in light of the old, it would follow that we would baptize our infants just as infants, at least male infants were circumcised. The idea being that if infants could become members of God’s covenantal family in the Old Testament for the old Israel, how much more would infants be able to become members of the covenantal family of God in the New Testament as part of the new Israel? And so I think much more, right?

Otherwise, you would have the new Israel being inferior to the Ode or the new covenant being inferior to the Ode, which of course is absurd given the principles of biblical typology. So I do think Colossians 2:11- 12 provides for us strong evidence that would support infant baptism. Now, we do have to be careful in putting too much weight on this text for other purposes. So a Protestant could fairly counter and say, “Well, that doesn’t necessarily prove that baptism regenerates and saves the infant and thereby implying the revelation of original sin. Rather, all it does is show that the infant can become a covenantal member of God’s family.” And that doesn’t necessarily entail washing away of original sin and salvation and regeneration, just like becoming a covenantal member of God’s family in the old covenant didn’t entail those things either. So I do think that Colossians 2:11 through 12 should not be employed to prove baptismal regeneration as a direct proof.

You might be able to provide some corollary principles there to try to extract it out from it, but by itself, it’s not going to get you that far. But I do think it provides a biblical justification and a root, you might say, for infant baptism. And getting back to what we were talking about earlier, William, about secret tradition. So although I think Colossians 2:11- 12 provides biblical justification that we should be baptizing infants with regard to whether that infant baptism is valid and communicating the graces of regeneration to the infant. So we got revelation that baptism regenerates from Jesus and others, and then we got this text and inferring that we should be baptizing infants. We could make a theological conclusion between the two, but in order to be certain, we need that sacred tradition that provides for us the belief that the graces of regeneration are in fact applied validly to the infant.

And so for any Protestant who affirms the validity of infant baptism, and there are many, they are ascenting to a belief that cannot be accounted for by scripture alone, thereby indicating a sacred tradition, an oral apostolic teaching beyond the boundaries of sacred scripture that was preserved in the Christian church among the Christian people, thereby constituting a twofold infallible paradigm of scripture and sacred tradition. So this whole infant baptism topic is very relevant to what we were discussing earlier concerning the topic of solo scripture and the counterposition of the Catholic Orthodox position of sacred scripture and sacred tradition. And then of course you asked about the early Christian testimony. In my book, I just simply surveyed three very briefly looking at Saint Erones of Leon, Saint Cyprien of Carthage, where they teach infant baptism. Also, Saint Hipolitus and his apostolic tradition speaks of baptizing the little ones prior to Saint Hipolitus, Saint Erones speaks of being purified upon baptism and by means of the sacred water, the invocation of the Lord, we’re spiritually regenerated as newborn babes.

And so there’s an indication of infants being spiritually regenerated there. He even says it explicitly where he says, “Through him, we are born again to God infants and children and boys and youths and old men.” So we have early attestation to the validity of infant baptism, not just validity in the sense of a ceremony that should be performed in the right way, but validity in the sense of baptism communicating the grace of regeneration, being born again, even for infants. And of course that, William, necessarily implies that these early Christians believed that the infants came into existence in their first birth lacking what they need in the second birth. Well, what is that? We call it sanctifying grace. It’s the supernatural life. And so this implies necessarily the early Christian belief and original sin, the deprivation of supernatural life or sanctifying grace in the soul that we have coming into existence even as infants, thereby needing the new birth to receive that gift which we do not receive in the first birth, namely God’s life and the soul, we call that sanctifying grace.

You there?

Karlo:

My bad. My mic was messed up there. My bad there. My mic was muted. Yeah. So yeah, those are great phenomenal points. Just to add to that, and I’m sure you know this very well, if we look and we examine and we survey, the early reformers also baptized babies. It’s an odd thing really when we look at modern day Protestantism, modern day Protestants of many churches condemn it outright. Well, the early reformers baptized babies, Luther baptized babies, early Presbyterian communities baptized babies, the Methodist churches baptized babies. And I can go on and on. Really, if anything is a novelty, Carlo, it’d be the novelty of denying babies baptism. That’s

William:

Going

Karlo:

To be the novelty.

William:

Yeah, it’s the novelty. It’s part of the minority.

Karlo:

Yes.

William:

But those particular Christians who would deny it would just simply counter and say, “Well, those guys were wrong. I disagree with them.” Right, right. But then of course we could push back and say, “Well, wait a minute, you’re disagreeing with a historical lineage of Christian practice and belief going all the way back to the earliest of early Christians, even into the apostolic age.” And so then you have to legitimately ask, that Christian’s going to have to ask themselves an honest question, should I go with the constant tradition within Christianity itself or my own individual belief concerning this issue? Who’s more trustworthy in this and being guided by the Holy Spirit, myself or that constant tradition of Christianity?

Karlo:

That’s a great question. A great way that you laid that out. Yeah, phenomenal way that you laid that out. And how are you doing for time? You have at least another 10 more minutes?

William:

Yes. Yes. I got about 10 more minutes. Yeah.

Karlo:

Let’s do that. Let’s go 10 more minutes, audience. So if you all have questions for Dr. Carlo, audience, you have your time right now to send them or to come back here and we’ll take your question really quick because Dr. Carlo, his schedule is incredibly busy. He’s got to head out in just a moment, but don’t worry, we will snag him and we’ll bring him on again by the grace of the Lord. Daniel, hey, we want to give Daniel a shout out. He’s one of our phenomenal moderators, one of our phenomenal members, he says, “If you were a Protestant, how would you reverse engineer the process of creating a canon?” Scripture, mass production, no errors go from the gospels. That’s a good question. That’s a really good question. Yeah, because if you stop and think about it, I hate to be brutal, but the Protestant canon really only works by reverse engineering if you really think about it.

So I think that you got it there, but I don’t want to sound mean, but to be very blunt, the Protestant doesn’t begin historically. They’re beginning with a priest-selected list. And just to note this, and I’ll allow you to give your thoughts, Brother Carlo, the list that modern day evangelicals go with, the majority at least, it doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible. It isn’t listed by Jesus. It isn’t listed by the apostles. It isn’t listed by anyone in the early church. So really, the process begins with a conclusion. It doesn’t begin with evidence. What are your thoughts on that?

William:

Yeah, I would agree. I do think that, at least for, as I mentioned earlier, a Protestant can fairly appeal to what he’s arrived at as an infallible testimony in Jesus and the apostles and come to the conclusion that some of the Jewish writings and Christian writings in their Bible are inspired because Jesus does affirm some O Testament text to be inspired. Sure. The apostles who have the authority of Christ to speak on behalf of Christ and thereby are infallible testimonies do affirm certain O Testament Jewish writings to be inspired by God, calling them scripture. So you could look to that infallible testimony and root and ground your belief. And even some of the New Testament documents, you can root your belief that those are inspired in the infallible testimony of some of the apostles like Peter and Paul. But as I mentioned earlier, you’re not going to get the full list number of books that you have in your canon, both old and new, according to that path alone.

So you can get some of that canon to be scriptura, but you’re going to have a reduced scripture. And one thing I wanted to point out earlier, a Protestant could fairly say, “Well, I will still uphold solo scriptura in the face of these arguments, but just recognize that his scripture is going to be smaller in list than what he initially thought.” And that’s logically consistent and that would be fair. So these sorts of argumentations do not disprove solo scriptura,

But they do point out problems for solo scripture in relation to the Protestant’s current beliefs. So the Protestant will have to either, A, give up current beliefs concerning the inspiration of certain books in his canon, or B, in order to keep his belief that certain books in the canon are inspired give up solo scriptura, you see? Yep. And so that’s the dilemma for the Protestant. And both of those options for most are unfavorable options to embrace or to live according to. So again, these sort of arguments don’t disprove Soloscriptor, but they do present some problems for the solo scripture advocate.

Karlo:

Yeah. Great, great reply there. St. Louis Pete says, “Great to see Carlo on here. We agree. And as soon as I announced that Carlo had to go in 10 minutes, we began getting a ton of people back here. Guys, where were you an hour ago? Where were you all an hour ago?” But as soon as I announced it, people began showing up. You got about five, five, six minutes.

William:

I thank you for being with us for the five or six minutes. Thank you very much. Ryan, I was about to say- We are most gracious.

Karlo:

You got about five, six minutes, so we’re going to have to make it fast. So we’ll bring Jeff up. Jeff, thank you for coming up. I do want to also tell you all, thank you for his support and thank you to Adi. Yeah, it shouldn’t be controversial, AB. Yeah, the early, early question early on was if the eight day time period was mandatory. AD, thank you for your comments and you guys are great and don’t forget to get Dr. Carlos’ books guys. Don’t forget to get them. And for our moderators, we’re about to bring somebody up so they can ask a question before we have to go off the air. But if our moderators could be so kind as to share the link to everything Dr. Carla related, you guys are phenomenal. Thank you. You guys are incredible. Let’s bring Jeff up. Jeff, how are you doing, my friend?

 

You got about five, six minutes, brother. I hope you’re doing well, brother.

Speaker 3:

Doing well, fellas. How about you?

Karlo:

Doing well, brother. What was on your mind, my friend? Just to be clear, you are evangelical, right? You’re Protestant.

Speaker 3:

If I have a label, it would be an agnostic theist, I guess. I was told that’s my label. You and I have talked before actually. Yeah, I remember we spoke. We spoke. About Catholicism. I had a question on solo scriptura. I don’t know if you remember. I’ve just started reading the Bible for myself.

Karlo:

I remember now, brother. I remember now.

Speaker 3:

Okay. How can a Christian come to God strictly through the Bible, through the King James Bible?

William:

All right. Okay. Well, that’s a good question. So my thought in response there, Jeff, would be that someone could look to the New Testament simply from a historical perspective, employing certain criteria of historographical research coming to the conclusion that these New Testament documents or records of the life of Jesus are historically reliable and trustworthy. And once that is in place, the inquirer could then look into the claims of Jesus who claims to be divine, not in some Eastern sense, but divine the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Jewish God, made flesh. And then he does a variety of different things to vindicate those claims, which again, using the criteria of historographical research, one can assess that those particular events are historically reliable as recorded in the New Testament documents. The greatest-

Speaker 3:

Let me clarify a little bit just

William:

To

Speaker 3:

Save a little bit of time. I 100% believe that Jesus Christ was the word in flesh.

William:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

No

William:

Problem with that. And so real quick, the conclusion was insofar as Jesus is who he says he is from a historical investigation, one could conclude God exists based upon this testimony of Jesus, which has been established to be a credible testimony, an infallible testimony. All right, go.

Speaker 3:

Okay. Like I said, a few of my questions you kind of answered with your monologue a little bit there. I’m very unfamiliar with Catholicism.

William:

That

Speaker 3:

Was the first time that I’ve heard that the books of the Bible, whether or not they were divinely inspired was questionable.

William:

Okay. So there are some Christians that will question some of the inspiration of some of these books. There are debates that go back within the history of Christianity where Christians were undecided amongst themselves as to which Jewish and Christian writings had the objective quality of divine inspiration. Now, from the Catholic perspective and the historical record, the church would come to an agreement in a variety of decisive acts to discern and decide these books inspired, not those books sort of thing. And recognizing that collection of books, what we call the canon, to be of the apostolic tradition, to be candid down from the apostles with a In the Christian heritage. Now, there are some Christians today among the Orthodox community and among the Protestant community who debate the Catholic claims as to which of these documents are inspired. They will debate some of those documents as to whether they are inspired or not.

And so this is something that Christians do debate about, unfortunately, which undermines our evangelistic endeavors and being a light unto those in the world who are non-believers. So this is something that we’re constantly having conversations about, but of course, those conversations raise very important questions as to how are we to discern? By whose authority are we to discern? And those are questions that we have to answer rightly in order to even proceed further to discern those sorts of questions, the answers to those questions as to what is going to be inspired and what is not.

Speaker 3:

Right. That kind of leads me into my next question. Like I said, I don’t know a whole lot about Catholicism. It’s

Karlo:

Very quickly, Jeff. I do know that Carlo has got to go very soon though. Carlos, he does have to go. But Jeff, I am here. As you know, I’m here live virtually every day. You’re very welcome to … Tomorrow I am going to be doing open Q&A. I’m going to do it at 4:30 Central. You’re welcome to join and we can go back and forth. But I am going to have to cut it out because he’s got to go, brother. But what I do recommend, Jeff, check out all the material he’s got and check out his website as well. He’s got phenomenal material, Jeff, that I think you can really gobble up and get a lot from, brother.

Speaker 3:

I’ll check it out.

William:

Yeah. And Jeff, thank you so much, my friend, for chiming in and chatting with me, man. I enjoyed the chat and hopefully you’ll continue the journey, man.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I’ll definitely keep my head in. All

William:

Right.

Karlo:

I hope to talk to you tomorrow, Jeff. God bless you, brother.

Speaker 3:

Thanks.

Karlo:

That was wonderful. But our near and dear friend, Dr. Carlos got to head out. Audience, you guys have been beyond tremendous and phenomenal. Do us an enormous favor. Don’t forget to continue sharing all of those links and everybody that tuned in at one point. We had over 401 live for Friday night. I love it. Awesome. You guys are great. You guys are phenomenal. If we can get all of you guys, if you haven’t already, if we can get all of you guys and gals to head over to Dr. Carlo and to subscribe, that would be incredible because remember-

William:

Thank you.

Karlo:

We rely on your support to be able to do this. Dr. Carlo will tell you we need your support to do it. And when you hit the like button, it makes the video more visible and people are able to see and they’ll say, “Hey, okay. Now I know that’s out there and I’m going to get this material for my family. I’m going to help them out. ” And we thank you greatly, including you, Mr. Fredy de Jesus. He said, “It’s a privilege to listen, learn from you both. Thank you, Dr. Carlo. God bless you everybody. You all have been incredible. Thank you for your phenomenal support, your input. And don’t forget, the best support you can give any of us, both of us here. You pray for us. Pray for us,

William:

Everybody. Amen.

Karlo:

The Lord bless all of you all. You all take care. Carlo, any final plug you want to put in? I know you’re in a rush. Anything you want to put in before you got to go, my friend?

William:

No, I just want to thank you, brother, for the opportunity to come on your channel and to geek out with you and to talk theology. I’m always game. I always love it. Very special thanks to your viewers who are going to the YouTube channel and subscribing, hitting that like button. And I appreciate that very much. So thanks again, William, and God bless, man. Have a good evening.

Karlo:

God bless you, brother. You have a great one, my friend.

William:

Well, my friends, that’s it for today. If you found this video helpful, make sure to like it, subscribe, comment below and share it with someone who might need to hear this. And for more resources, check out our website at catholic.com. My personal website, carlobrusar.com. If you want me to come and speak at your event, be sure to visit catholicanswerspeakers.com. Lastly, I want to thank those of you who are already patrons. We’re deeply grateful for your support because we can’t continue doing this podcast without you. And if you’re not already a patron, we’d love for you to consider supporting us over on Patreon for just $5 a month. You can get early access to my episodes, watch the episodes free of YouTube ads and get access to one of my six hour online short courses entitled How to Talk About Morality in An Age of Moral Relativism, which comes with lecture notes totalling to just over 20,000 words.

You can sign up for this level of membership at drcarlo.com with doctor spelled out, along with the other levels of membership. Thanks for hanging out and I’ll see you next time. God bless.